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Museum offers a ‘Day of Thanks’

The Imagine Nation Museum held a Thanksgiving luncheon for it’s preschool families and members last Tuesday. The Morin family enjoys their meal. (Photo by Janelle Morelli)

By TAYLOR MURCHISON-GALLAGHER

STAFF WRITER

Imagine Nation, A Museum Early Learning Center, hosted their annual Day of Thanks celebration on Tuesday, Nov. 20, which was open to all museum students, families, and members.

Imagine Nation Director, Coral Richardson, said it was important to celebrate Thanksgiving as an organization because it’s an opportunity to “ground yourself” and “remember why we do things, and how lucky we are to have what we have,” which she said is the true meaning of being thankful.

Leah Zukauskas, lead teacher of classroom 2A, said the celebration was important because “this unites us as a classroom, we are a family in itself.”

Her students were able to make decorations such as placemats, on which they wrote what they were thankful for, and paper pumpkin centerpieces.

One student, Caspian R., 3, said he was thankful for being able to eat turkey and playing baseball in the park.

“Every classroom kind of took the lead on what they wanted to do so, when you walk around through the museum studios you’ll see that some of them have art projects,” said Sara Castle, assistant director of Imagine Nation, “different classrooms have little gratitude conversation starters, so that the families can really talk about what Thanksgiving means.”

One such activity, said Richardson, was the Thankful Tree. Students and their parents were given the opportunity to write what they were thankful for on a paper leaf, which would then be hung on the tree.

And, no Thanksgiving celebration would be complete without a feast. Alie Waterman, Imagine Nation’s resident chef and Creative Foods Coordinator, worked with each classroom to prepare a special side dish to accompany the turkey that was provided by South Side Meat Market.

“The last two weeks I’ve been meeting with all the classrooms. We’ve been making green bean casseroles and cornbread so the kids can share with their family what they’ve been cooking,” said Waterman. “I think it’s all about community. We’re a huge school, I think we have like 130 students, so I think it’s really cool that everyone’s family members came out, you can feel the community vibe in the air today.”